So, It's My Turn to Ask Questions, Right?

So, It's My Turn to Ask Questions, Right?

"Clang!"

Amid the clash, the shield and bow that had collided were knocked apart by the gale, sending their wielders staggering backward and widening the distance between them.

"Tsk..."

The Archer clicked his tongue.

Because he had already seen it.

At some point, two people had appeared right in front of him.

"Are you the attacker?"

Mashu, holding her shield, questioned the Archer while remaining on guard, her eyes and expression stern.

Luo Zhen, standing behind Mashu, also looked over the Archer and confirmed his suspicions.

"As expected, the attacker is a Servant, and his class is Archer? I suppose I should say that wasn't unexpected."

Anyone capable of firing shots of that caliber could only be a Servant.

However, if the other party was a Servant, then there was one problem.

"Who summoned you, and why did you attack us? If I ask that, you probably won't answer, will you?"

Luo Zhen spoke those words playfully.

"Though I do have some guesses already."

Luo Zhen's words clearly reached the other party's ears.

The Servant whose class was Archer fell silent.

"What? Not saying anything?" Luo Zhen said with complete ease. "You should be a Servant summoned through a proper method. You can't be a defective product like a 'Shadow' that can't even hold a conversation, right?"

Luo Zhen was teasing him.

Though he said that, Luo Zhen was actually filled with vigilance.

The other party was a genuine Servant, not the sort of defective product that appeared in a simulated battle. If he let his guard down, he could very well be killed.

Luo Zhen had no intention of facing another crisis.

Therefore, now that the ambush had failed, he could only stall for time as much as possible and find a strategy advantageous to his side.

That was Luo Zhen's plan, and he deliberately tried to draw the other party into conversation.

As long as they talked, there was a chance of obtaining information and finding something advantageous to himself.

Luo Zhen's provocation seemed to have some effect.

"You've certainly surprised me. I never expected anyone to approach this closely while I occupied the high ground."

The Servant whose class was Archer glanced at the wary Mashu, then turned his gaze toward Luo Zhen.

"How did you do it?"

That was Archer's question.

"Neither the sky nor the ground can escape the surveillance of my 'Clairvoyance.' Approaching me should have been no easy feat." Archer stared at Luo Zhen. "Could it be that you used concealment magecraft, or a Noble Phantasm capable of Spatial Transfer?"

Archer could only think of those possibilities.

Unfortunately...

"Wrong." Luo Zhen shrugged. "I didn't need concealment magecraft, nor did I need such a precious Noble Phantasm as Spatial Transfer. Wouldn't it have been enough to make use of what's beneath this town?"

What was beneath this town?

Archer was stunned for a moment, then immediately understood.

"I see. The sewers?"

Exactly.

Behind the buildings that had served as cover, the last thing Luo Zhen had seen was the entrance to the sewers.

As long as he entered the sewers and followed them, he could quietly approach Archer without appearing in his field of vision.

As for finding Archer's location, that was even simpler.

"Although you were several kilometers away from us, sniping us from that distance necessarily required a sufficiently high position. In this direction, this was the only suitable place."

Luo Zhen's laughter dispelled all of Archer's doubts.

"Then it's my turn to ask questions, right?"

Luo Zhen looked toward Archer, his voice turning serious.

"Who sent you to attack us? And who is your Master?"

That problem had to be resolved first.

Besides that, Luo Zhen had many other questions.

The most important one was...

"What exactly happened to this town? Why did it become like this?"

Luo Zhen voiced the most important question.

A burning city reduced to ruins.

This was clearly an abnormal state.

If Luo Zhen's guess was correct, he had been Spiritron Transferred to the year 2004.

The fire in the Control Room had caused Chaldea's first operation to end before it could begin.

However, Chaldea's first Spiritron Transfer experiment had already been activated. Before Luo Zhen left the Control Room, while it had yet to explode, the experiment was already being adjusted.

Therefore, after the Control Room exploded, it would not have been strange for the system to detect that the experiment had been aborted, switch from manual operation to automatic operation, and Spiritron Transfer the Master whose condition remained intact to the operation's destination.

In other words, at this very moment, Luo Zhen was in Fuyuki City in 2004, inside Singularity Point F.

After all, according to Chaldea's records, Fuyuki City in 2004 had never suffered a fire that engulfed the entire town.

This could only mean that an abnormality had arisen in this era, something not recorded in history, and that an event that had never occurred in human history was now taking place.

That event had led to the destruction of human history.

Now, Luo Zhen intended to uncover the truth.

"Don't tell me you don't want to answer." Luo Zhen's smile did not reach his eyes. "The situation is in our favor right now."

Even though the ambush had failed, if the opponent was an Archer, then at such a close distance, even a Servant would be knocked down by Mashu before he could draw and nock an arrow.

Unless...

"You think closing the distance will let you win?"

Archer's cold voice rang out.

The next moment, Archer did something.

He released the bow in his hand.

"Buzz!"

Magic power surged again, gathering in Archer's hand like red lightning.

Then Archer's hand gripped two short swords formed from magic power, resembling opposite poles.

"What...!?"

Mashu was shocked.

"He has swords...!?"

Luo Zhen was equally astonished.

He was clearly an Archer. Why did he have swords?

Even if the bowman before him had also been skilled with swords in life, when an Archer's Saint Graph was summoned, the Noble Phantasm he was permitted to possess should only have been a bow.

Even as he was surprised, Luo Zhen understood in an instant.

As a magus, Luo Zhen knew what the Servant before him had just done.

"Projection...!?"

—"Projection."

It was a type of magecraft that used magical energy to materialize objects that had existed in reality as replicas, creating them anew.

The Servant before him had obtained swords in precisely this way.

In other words, he had not used a Noble Phantasm, but magecraft.

"Thinking an Archer can only use a bow was your mistake, nameless Master."

After throwing out those words, the nameless Archer laughed once. Then his smile turned cold. He suddenly stamped the ground and launched a charge with astonishing momentum.

"Master!"

Mashu immediately leaped in front of Luo Zhen, raised her shield, and prepared to meet Archer head-on.

Suddenly...

"—!"

The charging Archer abruptly stopped, then whipped his head around and looked in a certain direction.

His expression was replaced by irritation.

"That annoying dog!"

After shouting angrily, Archer actually ignored Luo Zhen and Mashu. He turned around, transformed into a shower of particles, and vanished.

"This..."

Mashu was stunned.

"A dog...?"

Luo Zhen frowned as well.

The entire iron tower was left with only the young boy and girl.

A cold wind swept past, carrying the smell of gunpowder.

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